


Memorials

by Aithilin



Series: Halloween Week 2019 [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Día de los Muertos | Day of the Dead, Established Relationship, M/M, Memorials, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 08:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21267980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: The day that Hallow's Eve led up to is a slightly more solemn affair in Lucis. Nyx likes it.





	Memorials

When the parties across Insomnia had ended— the autumn festivals culminating in the events hosted by the Citadel, mirrored a thousand times throughout the sprawling city— light seemed to dawn on a new day. The air had shifted with the sun rising through the cold grey clouds, and Nyx wondered if he had been in Lucis too long to really notice it. The shift was palpable, the autumn warmth and festive spirits had given way to something more subtle and sombre, like the lingering silence between two songs. 

He watched the city rise from Noctis’ balcony, the last remnants of seasonal heat bleeding out to the grey, damp day around him. He held his mug of coffee in both hands as he watched the cold dawn shine over the old decorations, now out of place in the new month. 

He knew what came next. 

In Galahd, the same sort of events, memorials were held in spring. When the snows had finally melted away and the blossoms of the graveyard trees bloomed red. The stories had always been the colour was for a soul, and the most vivid blossoms were in the old graveyards where the ashes of the dead had been scattered. He remembered the sight in his childhood— of bone white trees reborn from their winter slumber in a crown of crimson— and the terror of the stories it carried. The stories of restless souls that became daemons, of the trees that had cracked in the winter bleeding a red sap as an omen of bad luck. Of the curses that befell entire towns if the trees had been harmed or cut before the dead could be laid to rest at their roots, the ashes fed into the trees through the snow-damp ground.

He remembered the way the Nifs started with cutting down the trees to make room for their bases. And everything that followed after. 

Nyx preferred the Lucian way to do things. 

To hold feats and memorials together beneath the cold polished stone of their mosoluems and autumn bared trees. He preferred the way they looked the part of death in every somber procession past statues that had lost their names to time. Wreaths of light strung around the shrouded throats of the nameless goddess who flanked the Citadel doors and appeared at every building of note. There was one outside of the Kingsglaive headquarters, Nyx knew she would be illuminated as the day went on; there would be wreaths at her hidden feet, and flowers from across Eos wreathed beneath her gaunt, solemn features. 

And when the memorial was done, there would be a celebration. 

He could already see the lights being changed in the windows of apartments across the street, in the stores below. Banners with the Caelum crest— death itself, crowned and prominent against the blacks and golds of the royal line— had already been put up for display on streetlights and official buildings that he could see. 

“What are you doing?”

Noctis was half asleep, rubbing his eyes and still flushed from the warmth of his bed. 

“Just watching the world go by, little star.”

“You’re weird, hero.”

“I’m interesting.”

“Sure,” Noctis didn’t stay long in the chilly doorway of the balcony, slipping inside to find a hot drink and warmer clothes. “Did you want to come with me today?”

“I have a thing with the Glaives.”

There was a moment as Noctis weighed their options, as he sipped the bitter coffee Nyx knew he didn’t really like; “Want me to come with you? I can arrange it. Well, Iggy can.”

The memorial for the lost Glaives was always an understated affair. There was little attention to the soldiers when they weren’t the heroes of some story. When they weren’t returning victorious or with some grand flourish that could capture the Lucian interest in all things deemed a spectacle. The presence of the Crown Prince would change that. There would be attention and interest, the dutiful Prince honouring the fallen heroes would bring the eyes of the kingdom down on them. Force some form of acknowledgement. 

“Who would you be missing?”

“I’d just be with dad, opening the way to the tombs.”

The tombs beneath the Citadel, where the kings who had not sought out burials across their kingdom were laid to rest. Opened to accept the offerings and pleas for protection from the citizens. Opened to let the spirits loose, Nyx thought. To loose the ghosts that had been raised with the revelry the night before, freed from their summer slumber in an inverse of the way Nyx once thought the world worked.

But Noctis’ mother was interred there, and the generations that came before. 

“You should stick with your family for these things. We’ll have the fun stuff afterwards, anyway.”

“You’re family, too.”

“Check with the Captain.”

After the memorials would be the feasts. The quiet dinners in family homes, where generations gathered with the black framed portraits of their loved ones. 

Nyx watched the street be cleared below, the coffee in his hands still steaming in the morning air. 

But before it all— before the memorials and solemn dinners— there was one last party. There was one final push to rouse the sleeping spirits that were interred beneath the city. Beneath the Citadel crypts. The parades stretched through each distract with light and sounds and the colours meant to attract attention. Noctis, he knew would greet the procession that ended at the Citadel, when his father would open the crypts for the offerings. He would stand, as he did each year, on the steps below his father, to ask him to wake the dead on behalf of the people who had arrived with their music and lights and the chaos of the living. 

Tomorrow, the dead would feast with the living, and the last day of costumes would mask the citizens from those spirits wishing bad lick on the living. 

Nyx had always thought that part was more fun than the memorials and services, and the solemn laying of lights and wreaths and flickering candles. 

“I will.” Noctis agreed, phone already in hand. 

“Selena would have loved this holiday,” Nyx mused. “She was always a bit macabre.”

He could imagine his sister dancing among the parade, strolling through the crypts to read each name she could find. He could imagine her in a park or plaza, sketching the costumes the day after, smiling as the children took full advantage of the tradition to ask for the treats leftover from the day before. She would have loved the story and the meaning, just as she had loved the crimson blossoms every spring back home.

“We can do something for her, you know. Even if it’s just us.”

“Maybe.” Nyx liked the Lucian ideas of death. That it was just another sleep. That spirits could be roused so easily and generations gathered around a table laden with food in memorial. He liked the idea that the dead still rested, but were never really done— never far from the memory of the living. That they still had a presence, and one that he had missed dearly when he left Galahd. When he was uprooted, just like those once sacred trees. “That might be nice.”

Noctis smiled brightly from the couch he had settled on, coffee already abandoned after a few sips. “I’ll stay with you today, hero.”


End file.
